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The biggest own goal in recorded history.

I think a key difference between the two might be that Hinch is a teacher comfortable working with young raw talent to mold them, make them better, and teach them to win; while Leyland was a field general comfortable with leading a battalion of grown-ass men responsible for their own damn selves into battle.

Would it have been reasonable for Hinch to have quit and effectively end his major league career over it, versus riding it out and hoping he comes out the other end OK?

If this were the NBA, the Dodgers would probably be 120-21 right now.

And as we learned in the early 2010s, having a whole staff of aces on a team anchored by an inner-circle Hall of Fame hitter is also sometimes not enough to win rings.

Also, team that would seriously consider trading their core ace rotation pieces can do just as well if not better by waiting until the winter, versus hurriedly putting together a deal to beat an in-season deadline.

While I don't disagree with you in principle, I personally still value outright division titles and would not consider a team with a tie for the best record and the tiebreaker advantage as having won the division title, irrespective of whether that's considered rational anymore. In any event, as Lee says, I'm an old ****, applying the magic number to an outright league or division title is the way I learned it was done, this is the way I like to do it, and this is how I am going to continue to do it. In the meantime, enjoy another picture of a Detroit Tiger wearing this morning's magic number.

If you have ever been in a situation where someone who reports to you goes around you to your boss directly on some project and cuts you out of the process entirely, you would understand what happened to Hinch in Houston. I also think Hinch is the best actual Tigers manager of my lifetime, and he got totally hosed out of last year’s Manager of the Year award.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer team. Well, except maybe the Yankees.

He was one of my coaches for one of the Tigers fantasy camps I was at in the late 2000s, and he was a very, very good guy. He was engaged, personable, and always available for a chat.

No opinion involved. To win the division outright, the magic number is the (number of games in a season plus one) minus [(number of wins first place team has) plus (number of losses second place team has)]. In our case, it’s 163 - (82+69), which equals …

Well, at least he got good and paid on the way out.

I hear this kind of thing all the time after we lose a game. As a thought experiment, ask yourself this: had A.J. used the bullpen in the exact same manner—Bailey Horn for 1.0 inning, Keider Montero for 3.2 innings, and Tyler Holton for 0.1 inning—and they had all held the White Sox scoreless and we ended up winning, 5-4, would you still have regarded the use of the bullpen as horrible? You don't have to answer this out loud—I'm just offering it up to everyone here as a thought exercise.

He does say that, but that doesn't necessarily mean pull out all the stops in order to win the game every game of the 162-game season in Game 7 style. There are times during the regular season he does have to, for reasons of the moment. Apparently he did not regard this as one of those games, and I can see why.

You're right on all this. Carpenter is definitely on board. So are all the other young controlled guys. That said, A.J. did, in his uniquely diplomatic A.J. way, throw the two highest paid players on the team under the bus some. That's what led to my thin hypothesis, based solely on my experience living in the world, nothing more.

Responding only to your very narrow point here, Flaherty not Javy Baez have gotten any rings from A.J. I'm just speculating baselessly, building on my admittedly thin hypothesis from up the page.

Depends on the prospects and the pitcher. Have any examples of what you would like?

A couple of them look like marching blow-up dolls.

Moscow Donnie is short-sighted: he's only after the money and the glory, nothing more. He knows the way to the money and glory is to destroy America and remake it in his image, and that's what's happening right now. Drunken Pete is a cipher at the behest of Moscow Donnie's cause. DP has no decision-making authority beyond tactics in the moment. That's why he is more focused on rooting out so-called "woke" in the military rather than maintaining the traditional focus and strength of our forces. It's the only facet of his job in which his authority goes practically unchallenged, because in the short term anyway, it doesn't affect the readiness of our forces.

None of this matters until Trump is penalized in substance for doing this.

Apropos of nothing, I'm going to guess that you posted this from a phone, perhaps an iPhone, and your autocorrect changed "War" to "WAR". 😃

I thank god every day I married well. And believe it or not, so does she. 😉

By his telling, his training was shoot first and ask questions later.

I remember as a teenager working **** jobs where they said they wanted “hard workers”. One guy said he wanted somebody who wouldn’t “**** around”. Turns out that was code for things like “do this terrible thing that’s not part of your job description”, “my ride’s not here, drive me home”, or “punch out and keep working”.

The demands for changes of less and less consequence will become more and more onerous. Book that.